History

2007: Many reasons to celebrate

2007: The 10th Hamburg Aviation Conference takes place on 13th February. Over 400 recognised experts and well-known aviation industry senior executives from 22 countries gather to discuss current trends and strategies for global aviation.

The spectacular final phase of structural works for the Airport Plaza begins on 26th April. Over the course of five nights five steel trusses, each 102 metres long and weighing 62 tonnes, are lifted into their positions using Europe’s largest mobile crane. The structural works are completed on 2nd August, when the topping-out ceremony takes place. The Airport Plaza between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 is the third structure designed by the architect Meinhard von Gerkan, all with a distinctive character: the sweeping roofs are designed to remind the viewer of a plane’s wings.
The airport’s new hydrogen filling station, only the second in all of Hamburg, commences operations on 31st May. Among the vehicles it fuels are the two baggage tugs, powered using fuel cell technology.

A weekly cargo service between Hamburg and the United Arab Emirates is launched on 2nd September, 2007. The Emirates SkyCargo freight plane, an Airbus A310-300F, departs Hamburg for Dubai every Sunday at 12 noon. The aircraft can carry up to 39 tonnes of cargo. The annual volume of air cargo handled by Hamburg Airport is now some 78,000 tonnes. Thanks to the new cargo service to and from Dubai the amount of flown air cargo at Hamburg Airport increases.

Northern Germany’s largest aviation and music festival – the Airport Days Hamburg – is held on 15th and 16th September on the aprons of Hamburg Airport and Lufthansa Technik. 150,000 visitors admire the star guest, the Airbus A380, and some 120 modern and vintage aircraft on the ground and in the air as well as enjoying open air concerts on the large NDR stages.
Residents to the north of Hamburg Airport are provided with significantly increased aircraft noise protection from September 2007 onwards. The towns of Quickborn and Norderstedt; the parish of Hasloh; the state of Schleswig-Holstein and the airport operator, Flughafen Hamburg GmbH, agree on a new, voluntary noise protection programme. It subsidises the installation of soundproofed windows and sound-absorbing ventilators in residential buildings located within the zone for voluntary subsidies. Thanks to the programme the property owners affected only have to pay 1/6 of the costs incurred for the installation of soundproofed windows. The programme will run for 3 ½ years. To date Hamburg Airport has invested some 35 million euros in passive noise protection measures such as soundproofed windows and ventilators – far more than legally required. Over 14,500 households have been equipped with soundproofed windows free of charge and over 7,000 sound-absorbing ventilators have been installed.

The “cheap flights” segment is growing at Hamburg Airport. easyJet has been offering daily flights from Hamburg to London/Luton since 5th November, 2007.
On the 6th December Hamburg Airport welcomes its 12 millionth passenger of the year. The previous year Hamburg Airport recorded a total of 11,954,556 m passengers, narrowly missing the 12 million mark.

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